


grim visag'd war

by kitmarlowed



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: i don't know what this is
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:54:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kitmarlowed/pseuds/kitmarlowed
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry Potter meets death when he is very young. Death is a high laugh, death is a flash of green.</p>
            </blockquote>





	grim visag'd war

i.

 

Harry Potter meets death when he is very young. Death is a flash of green light and a scream. Death is a laugh.

 

ii.

 

“You told me my parents died in a car crash!” he shouts at them, when this giant of a man comes knocking, because the lies seep to his soul and tell him his worldview is wrong. Death is not an object, it is a being, it is a man.

 

iii.

 

“She won’t wake,” Death tells him, a gleam in his eyes that says ‘try Harry, I dare you, try’. He fights a monster with a sword from a hat. The real monster cries out and falls into light. Ginny Weasley wakes up. He tastes true heroism that night.

 

iv.

 

He meets death again in a school tournament, a simulated danger and the irony is not lost. Voldemort shows him more, perhaps, than Voldemort even knows - ties him to the family grave, a physical blood link. They are brothers now.

 

v.

 

In fifth year he does not see death, not to greet nor punch when he loses the last of his family (he would not despair this way if he lost the Dursleys, even now the thought appals him). The veil heeds no spectre in a cloak, no high laugh or green light. Harry closes his eyes and screams.

 

vi.

 

He mumbles the word of a spell he doesn’t understand and sees death again in the wounds that appear on his enemy (this is not his enemy). He cries out ‘no, I didn’t’ turns on his heel, runs.

 

He falls to his knees and a phantom drags his chin up. “A murderer now, Harry Potter,” says the voice of a young Tom Riddle and Harry sees Death plain as day. He begs.

 

Death shrugs the black robe from his shoulders and underneath the body blurs, a skeleton then raven feathers. Death places the cloak on Harry’s shoulders and whispers, “you are Death now. Will you save your enemy?”

 

Harry gasps under the weight, “at what cost?”

 

“You,” Tom Riddle’s image says and disappears.

 

vii.

 

Harry defeats death when he kills Voldemort, and yet people still die. In the mirrors and shattered glass he sees Death with Tom Riddle’s face and he talks to it, sometimes.

 

“Why are you here?”

“You aren’t killing.”

“Why should I?”

“You are Death.”

“What are you?”

“A ghost.”

“Why won’t you leave?”

 

 

 

 

I am yours.


End file.
